


less that we could do

by la_victorienne



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-24
Updated: 2009-01-24
Packaged: 2018-10-16 01:01:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10560734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_victorienne/pseuds/la_victorienne
Summary: ianto is leaving.





	

We bury our love in the windsory grave  
Along came the snow, that was all that remained.  
But we stayed by its side as the days turned to weeks  
And the ice kept getting thinner with every word that we'd speak.

“It’s over, Jack.” Ianto lifts his hand to Jack’s face, cupping the strong Adonis jaw with familiarity. “I can’t stay here any longer.”

Jack shuts his eyes, his lips pressed together, flat and thin. “Please don’t go,” he says through the clench in his teeth. “I can’t do this without you.”

“And I can’t do this _with_ you, Jack. We’re not working and you know it. None of it is. I can’t let my selfishness come between the world and its safety.” Jack breaks the contact, looking away, and Ianto lets his hand fall, the space between them widening catastrophically.

“I love you, Jack,” he says after a moment. “I’ve never known someone so close to my heart, someone who scares me and challenges me and wants me the way you do. I’m not ever going to stop loving you.”

“But you just can’t stay,” Jack finishes, with a resigned sigh and a faux-casual shrug. “It’s okay, Ianto, I understand. It’s too much for you.”

Ianto stutters out a laugh, sharply catching Jack’s attention with its pretended coarseness. “Wrong again, Jack. It’s _not enough_.

“I don’t want flowers or chocolates or extravagant presents; I don’t want declarations or commitment ceremonies or preferential treatment at the office. What I want from you, Jack, is you, and I’ve never even come close to having it. So, no, I just can’t stay.” He utters the words with a grave finality, as if still convincing himself of their truth.

Jack knows he has made up his mind and will not be budged, no matter what is said next, but he cannot help but try. “I can give you me,” he pleads. “There’s no-one I’d rather give myself to. You’re it, Ianto, please stay. I can’t bear for someone else to leave me.”

“We’re always going to leave you, Jack,” he replies. “Every time you love someone, we’re going to leave. But that’s not a reason to stop loving. What we had was good, Jack, and I won’t pretend we didn’t both need it. But it’s over, and there are six billion more people in the world just waiting for a man like you to come along.” He draws Jack close, kisses him through the sting of restrained tears. Jack clutches at Ianto’s arms, falls into the kiss, keeps him as close as possible for as long as he can, but eventually he must let go and Ianto must move on.

And when they pass on the street, will Ianto know him? Will Ianto recognize Jack’s voice, Jack’s hair, Jack’s mouth? Will he be able to look Jack in the eye and walk on without a word, as if what they had was never real, not even for a moment? Jack doesn’t suggest RetCon; if Ianto wants it, he’ll use it, and if not – well, Jack’s long stopped following Torchwood “protocol,” especially when it comes to this, his most carefully-kept team. Proper burials, release without memory adjustment, sex with the boss. And now here he stands, bereft of all of these, left willingly by the best of them.

“One night.” His words surprise even him, rife as they are with something akin to desperation. “Before you go. I just want one night.” Ianto looks at him carefully, with that same piercing stare that can make Jack weak in the knees or wary for his life, depending on the circumstances. He waits a beat, then two, until Ianto can’t possibly stay silent any longer, and still nothing. He turns his head away. Ianto grimaces.

“Okay.”

 

 

 

 

At Ianto’s flat, amid boxes and baskets filled with the unimportant parts of a life never lived, Jack is forceful, hell-bent on showing just what he needs from this man. Ianto pushes back, meets Jack at every juncture, burning low and steady against Jack’s white-hot rise. They have a few options – the wall, the counter, the creaky wooden kitchen table – but Jack is all for the bed, as if it’ll make a difference, as if it’ll make Ianto stay. He lets Ianto lay him out, tease him open, press up and in until they’re both caught, flush and panting, in a joining that never gets old. Can’t Ianto see that he has all of Jack? That everything Jack loves and hates about himself is here under Ianto’s hands? That he does not hide – _cannot_ hide – anything from this confident and terrible young lover? Jack doesn’t understand what Ianto thinks he lacks. There are no words to express how committed Jack really is – to this, to everything – only the skip-stutter-gasp of bodies in motion and skin slick-sliding against skin.

“This is me,” he whispers, fingers caught in Ianto’s hair, mouth latching onto anything it can reach. “You have me. Here, now. I am yours.”

Ianto just sinks his teeth into Jack’s muscled shoulder and moves faster, until the filthy slap of body to body makes Jack keen in anticipation. “This isn’t what I meant,” Ianto growls, before brutally pulling and twisting and pushing and thrusting and bringing them both to the fiery edge, to the tip of the glass blade, to the explosion of the sun. “And it won’t keep me,” he whispers, softer, even as they’ve collapsed in a sticky heap amid tangled sheets and tousled pillows. Jack holds on to Ianto’s body for dear life, insinuating himself into the position that shares the most skin, and says nothing, as if pretending will keep the inevitable at bay.

But for the first time in their long time, Jack is the one who wakes up alone.


End file.
